[July, 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST 
1872 .] 
READ SOME OF THE NOTICES BY THE PRESS 
OF ONE OF THE MOST INTENSELY INTERESTING 
AMERICAN STORIES 
EVER WRITTEN. 
The Hoosier School-Master. 
By EDWARD EGGLESTON. 
Finely Illustrated with Twelve Full-page Engravings on 
Tinted Paper, and Numerous other Cuts. 
NOTICES BY THE PRESS. 
NOTICES BY' THE PRESS. 
It is in tlie fullest sense a powerful novel, and dis¬ 
plays an originality as rare as it is fascinating.—®. 
Louis Democrat. 
It is one of the best works of fiction we have 
read for many a day. We knew many of the char¬ 
acters in it, that is, we have seen men, women, and 
children like them. It will do .—Central Christian 
Advocate. 
It is the best serial we ever remember to have 
read. Except in length and number of characters, 
it is not behind Dickens’s masterpiece, “David Cop- 
perfield.” It is true to nature ; nothing is distorted, 
nothing overdrawn; it has not an impossible char¬ 
acter in it.— The Commonwealth, Salem, O. 
Though many will view the book from every other 
stand-point, we think its greatest charm is in the fact 
that it brings one nearer to Christ. Oh! with out- 
hand in Shocky’s, we assure all that are in any doubt 
that God hasn't forgot, and that He never will for¬ 
get; and though sometimes He chooses to lead us 
through the night, the way is always heavenward.— 
IFood’s Household Magazine. 
The plot is very simple, and of easy prevision 
from the first, being the struggles of Ralph Hartsook 
with the young idea in the district school on Elat 
Creek, where the twig was early bent to thrash the 
school-master.The story is very well told, in 
a plain fashion, without finely-studied points. 
Mr. Eggleston is the first to touch in fiction the 
kind of life he has represented, and we imagine 
that future observers will hardly touch it in more 
points. Its traits seem to be all here, both the good 
and the bad ; but that it is a past or passing state of 
things is sufficiently testified by the fact, to which 
Mr. Eggleston alludes in his preface, that the story, 
as it appeared serially, was nowhere more popular 
than in Southern Indiana. Flat Creek, Hoopole 
County, would not, we imagine, have been so well 
pleased thirty years ago with a portrait which, at 
any rate, is not flattered.— Atlantic Monthly. 
Eggleston’s “Hoosier School-Master” is full of 
rich and racy humor, and makes us regret that its 
author has turned his back to the pulpit, in which 
wit is needed quite as much as wisdom, and the 
ability to make men laugh is only less valuable than 
the power of making them weep. In fact, as a 
general thing, he who can not raise a smile on people’s 
faces may pump in vain for tears .—Golden Age, N.Y. 
Dr. Eggleston lived as a boy in this region (South¬ 
ern Indiana), and this book is a faithful witness that 
the impression made upon his mind by its social 
peculiarities remains to this day perfectly distinct 
and legible. Indeed, we have rarely read any story 
whose truthfulness as a picture of life was more ap¬ 
parent. The characters are clearly drawn ; the con¬ 
versation is natural; the whole view of the back- 
woods society is consistent and lifelike,—A. Y. In¬ 
dependent. 
It might be dramatized so as to make a most effec¬ 
tive play. There is all the material in the book, and 
a good deal of the work already done to hand.— 
Newburyport (Mass.) Herald. 
It is published in the neat and attractive form 
which makes all the publications of Orange Judd & 
•Co. such a tasty and welcome addition to the library 
or library table. Of the story itself we have had 
occasion to speak before in terms of unqualified ad¬ 
miration.— Kansas Spirit, Lawrence, Kansas. 
Mr. Eggleston’s powerful novel, " The Hoosier 
'School-Master,” increases in interest as it goes on, 
and contains some characters truly original.— 
Springfield. Republican. 
“ Ralph sat by the fire the next morning trying to read a few minutes be¬ 
fore school-time, while the boys were doing the chores, and the bound girl 
was milking the cows, with no one in the room but the old woman. She was 
generally as silent as Bud, but now she seemed for some unaccountable rea¬ 
son disposed to talk. She had sat down on the broad hearth to have her 
usual morning smoke; the poplar table, adorned by no cloth, sat in the 
floor ; the unwashed blue tea-cups sat in the unwashed blue saucers ; the un¬ 
washed blue plates kept company with the begrimed blue pitcher. The dirty 
skillets by the fire were kept in countenance by the dirtier pots, and the 
ashes were drifted and strewn over the hearth-stones in a most picturesque 
way. 
“ ‘ You see,’ said the old woman, knocking the residuum from her cob- 
pipe, and chafing some dry leaf between her withered hands preparatory to 
filling it again, ‘ you see, Mr. Hartsook, my ole man’s purty well along in the 
world. He’s got a right smart lot of this world’s plunder, one way and an¬ 
other.’ And while she stuffed the tobacco in her pipe Ralph wondered why 
she should mention it to him. 1 You see we moved in here nigh upon twen¬ 
ty-five year ago. 'Twas when my Jack, him as died afore Bud was born, was 
a baby. Bud’ll be twenty-one the fifth of next June.’ 
“ Here Mrs. Means stopped to rake a live coal out of the fire with her 
skinny finger, and then to carry it in her skinny palm to the bowl—or to the 
hole—ot her cob-pipe. When she got the smoke agoing she proceeded : 
“ ‘You see this ere bottom land was all Congress land in them there days, 
and it sold for a dollar and a quarter, and I says to my ole man, “ Jack," says 
I, “ Jack, do you git a plenty while you’re a-gittin’. Git a plenty while you’re 
a-gittin’,” says I, “ fer ’twon’t neverbe no cheaper’n ’tis now,” and it ha’n't 
been, I knowed ’twouldn’t,’ and Mrs. Means took the pipe from her mouth 
to indulge in a good chuckle at the thought of her financial shrewdness. 
• “ Git a plenty while you’re a giftin’,” says I. I could see, you know, they 
was a powerful sight of money in Congress land. That’s what made me say, 
“ Git a plenty while you’re a gittin’.' And Jack, he’s wuth lots and gobs of 
money, all made out of Congress land. Jack didn’t git rich by bard work. 
Bless you, no! Not him. That a’n’t his way. Hard work a’u’t, you know. 
’Twas that air six hundred dollars he got along of me, all salted down into 
Flat Crick bottoms at a dollar and a quarter a acre, and ’twas my sayin’ “ Git 
a plenty while you’re a gittin’ ” as done it.’ And here the old ogre laughed, 
or grinned horribly, at Ralph, showing her few straggling, discolored teeth.” 
—From “ The Hoosier School-Master." 
The development of the story is substantially a 
rude epic of truth, gentleness, and true pluck. For 
the young master, younger than most of his pupils, 
far more cultivated in every direction than any of 
the population, and practically religious, instructs 
the community as well as the school; reclaims some 
of the worst, foils some, and has some detected and 
punished; encourages and loves, and is loved by a 
charming orphan, and graduates into a higher posi¬ 
tion with the highest honors. The moral is one of 
robust manhood confirmed in the worst conditions.— 
American and Gazette (Philadelphia). 
The talent of the author is by no means limited to 
external observation, but extends below the surface 
to shrewd recognition of the lights and shades of 
character. He makes free use of the comic element 
in his descriptions, but only when comic objects fall 
in his way; lie is not always bound on a forlorn 
pursuit of fun, and does his readers the justice to 
remember that they arc capable of amusement with¬ 
out being kept on a broad laugh by perpetual cari¬ 
cature. Although possessing a strong sense of the 
ludicrous, he is no cynic; he is not one who rejoices 
in making sport of the faults and foibles of his 
fellow-creatures; his power of satire furnishes him 
with a trenchant blade, but he has too much good¬ 
nature to use it for mischief. The kindly tone of 
liis volume does not at all detract from its piquant 
effect, While it will recommend it to many readers 
who prefer humanity to ill-humor.— Hew York 
Tribune. 
It is full of quaint humor, a tender pathos, and 
vivid descriptions.— Nero York Standard. 
The “events" are stirring and dramatic, and the 
style is quiet, impersonal, and almost epigrammatic 
in its ability to lay bare an entire situation or char¬ 
acter in a sentence or phrase.— Brooklyn Daily Eagle. 
It is at once quaint and truthful, and illustrated as 
it is by masterly cuts, it should be one of the most 
popular books.— Christian Standard (Cincinnati). 
For realistic conception and life-like delineation 
of character, it is not excelled by any American 
story.— Methodist. 
Some passages in it, for life-like delineation and 
the simple, artless beauty which constitute the high¬ 
est perfection of story-writing, are equal to some of 
the very best passages in Dickens.— Religious Tele¬ 
scope. 
Edward Eggleston's genins for story-telling is now 
flowering out in “ The Hoosier School-Master,” an 
illustrated story, which promises to be of rare in¬ 
terest.— Sunday-school Times. 
Edward Eggleston’s story, “ The Hoosier School- 
Master,” affords one of the most graphic and pic¬ 
turesque portraitures of the early frontier life ot the 
West which has ever been written. Some of his 
character sketches are inimitable, and all have an 
individuality and freshness which stamp him as a 
genuine artist.—A. Y. Evening Mail. 
The London Fun says of this book, an edition of 
which has appeared in England : 
“ The Hoosier School-Master, both by its descrip¬ 
tion as a book of American humor and by the cut. 
on the wrapper, would lead one to suppose it was 
something in the ‘Josh Billings ’ line. It is, how¬ 
ever, a pleasant disappointment to find it a charm¬ 
ing story in the vein of Wendell Holmes; humor¬ 
ous it is true, but full of a rough, natural pathos that 
will commend itself to all readers. We must keep 
an eye on Mr. Eggleston.” 
PRICE, POST-PAID, $1.25. 
ORANGE JUDD AND COMPANY, 24-5 BROADWAY, NEW YORK. 
