234 EARLY DAY STORIES. 



years old. In the west end of our old log school house was 

 a fire place that took up about a third of the end of the 

 building. The fire-place and hearth were of stone, the hearth 

 being of large flat stones, and the chimney built of small, 

 split oak sticks, heavily plastered on the inside with clay to 

 protect the wood from taking fire. The old school house 

 was very comfortable and the great open fire, built of logs 

 four feet long and some of them a foot in diameter was 

 very cheerful and pleasant. When the new red school 

 house was built, a box stove was put in for heating and we 

 did not like it, at least for a time, nearly as well as the old 

 fire-place. It is hard to get used to new things — I am not 

 sure but I would still keep the old fire-place if fuel was as 

 plenty and easy to get as it was then. 



I remember well what branches were taught — reading, 

 spelling, writing, arithmetic, geography, grammar, and 

 United States History. The history was taught chiefly as a 

 reading lesson, sometimes the class being questioned as to 

 what the lesson contained, but not always. The writing 

 books were made at home of cap paper, the copies being writ- 

 ten by the teacher, and as a rule whenever a change was 

 made in teachers there was a change in the style of penman- 

 ship. The pens were made of goose quills and required 

 mending, or "sharpening", as it was called, at the beginning 

 of every writing lesson. Most of the teachers were poorly 

 qualified and closely followed the text books in hearing 

 recitations. I remember one teacher who required us to 

 commit to memory the names of all the counties in all the 

 states, and to give the names of all the rivers from Maine to 

 Louisiana, telling where they took their rise, in what direc- 

 tion they flowed and where they emptied. She did this not- 

 withstanding the fact that in a foot note it stated that thics 

 part could be omitted if the teacher thought best. Every 

 rule in grammar and in arithmetic had to be committed to 

 memory, and all of the rules for spelling had to be studied 



