18 FIFTY YEAES AMONG THE BEES 



school be than one in which the scholars were free to whisper 

 to their hearts' content. The teachers, in too many cases, 

 seemed to be chosen because of their lack of fitness for any 

 other calling. The one concerning whom I have perhaps the 

 earliest recollection was a man who distinguished himself by 

 having a large famUy of boys named in order after the presi- 

 dents, as far as the United States had at that time progressed 

 in the matter of presidents, and who extinguished himself by 

 falling into a well one day while he was drunk. 



But with the advent of free schools came rapid improve- 

 ment, and I made fair progress in the rudiments, even though 

 the advancement of each pupil was entirely independent of 

 that of every other. Indeed, there was no such thing as a class 

 in arithmetic. Each one did his "sums" on his slate, and sub- 

 mitted them to the "master" for approval, the master doing 

 such sums as were beyond the ability of the pupil, in some 

 cases a more advanced pupil doing this work in place of the 

 teacher. Tom Cole was a beneficiary of mine, and every time 

 I did a sum for him he gave me an apple. I do not recall that 

 I lacked the apples, and apples then and there were worth 121/2 

 cents a bushel. 



PARENTS. 



When ten years old I suffered a loss in the death of my 

 father, the greatness of which loss I was at that time too young 

 fully to realize. He was an elder in the Presbyterian church, 

 but for one of those days very tolerant of the views of others. 

 He was most lovable in character, and the wish has been with 

 me all through my life that I might be as good a man as my 

 father. I think he was chiefly of English extraction, although 

 his ancestry had for many generations lived in this country. 

 His father had tried to make a tailor of him, but he did not 

 take kindly to that business, and became a physician. 



My mother was a German, her father and mother having 

 both come from the fatherland. Like many others at that day, 

 her education never went beyond the ability to read, and I am 

 not sure that her reading ever went outside of the Bible. Pos- 

 sibly confining her reading to so good a book was one reason 

 why she was a woman of remarkably good judgment, and to 



