Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 July 1896 — WHEN SCHOOL CLOSES [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

WHEN SCHOOL CLOSES

THE EVENT OF THE YEAR IN COUNTRY DISTRICTS Everybody Looks Forward to It wvsn Keenly Joyful Expectations—Even the Stern Teacher Divests Himself sf His Mich of Austerity. The Last Day. No day was so great as the last day »f school Three months of study seemed eternally long. Looked forward to

from the beginning of the term it seemed a simply impossible distance. No pupil's conception could leap across these interminable days, weeks, months and ages and distinguish the end of the term. Children grew skeptic, and felt sure there was nothing but the present ever had been, and could not be. Last day’s of

school were dreams and fictions, or like the morals in the reading lessons. And as the days of embittering work Trent by how firm a hatred of the teacher grew up in each child’s heart. It was n certain thing he showed partiality. Me couldn't work all the examples in the arithmetic, for John Rhinehart •flatted him” on one in partial payments. He made a mistake in grammar, and said Hartford was on the Kennebec River. He made Jenny Drake sit with the boys, when her mother forbade his ever doing such a tiring, and he flogged Jimmy Thompson unmercifully. But just wait until Jimmy's big brother comes home. There arc good days and bad—mostly the latter. Lessons are broken off in something like rations, and each day’s “stint" has to be done, for the class has Btarted to get through the book, and there is no time to halt by the wayside. Pupils who cannot keep up must pretend they are keeping up. The class cannot be held back for them. The gait of the fastest is the gait of the school. There was no grading as there is now. •nd there was no semblance of an examination. The teacher achieved a post of tolera-

tlon. Of course he was wrong, and to T»e spoken ill of at all being fixed, pupils might safelytreat him with cordiality now and then, and yet not imperil their standing in the school. It might eyen be admitted of him, indeed, that he was, in some respects, not much worse than the last winter’s incumbent. One thing inhis favor was his ability as a ball player. Never was a teacher in the schoolhouse Could throw * bgll as straight as this man, and none could catch as well,, either, come to think. And he did write a good hand, to be sure, and could explain some things. Besides, he did not act decent •taut the treats at Christmas. For it has taken somewhat more than half the |erm to work this grudging transformation. There is no retreating, ■understand, from the settled position that this teacher is simply bearable—no more. Ke is yet much the worsft from all points of view hungup hjs that in the schoqUiqusqi .Heys yet the common enemy. ,v, ~ 5; ( g

And lusfe here tedmes talk, of the last day of'schoOfc tWB-girls-begin it, with their plans'exhibition.” The talk jgrows. it .topsnines part' the time of study and a good many tyouns at home. The nearer the end of the term the more fully is study McriflCed to-preparatio»>for the last day of school "Clearly It cannot be subordinated tp,anything. Much as he Is disliked, the teacher is solicited to aid, •nd fitting as:refusal would, have been to his established character, his acquiescence is received with applause. The weather gets warmer as “the last 4tay*’ approaches. Indeed, one or two •f the larger boys have had to quit go to work on the farm. It to almost time to. b^in, spring plowing. The big girls come to school with something comely relieving the monotony •f their winter frocks.’. The little boys, ;who know no tffitfioritytijad-fcannot see •nd lay bands upon them, go barefoot •t recess and have the audacity to live. Some little girl finds a wood violet and brings it to the teacher, and he accepts it gratefully, biit 6almly. ft recurs ♦e the opinion-makers that since the tost day of school is so'ncSif tHere is no •red correcting the little girl for her And then comes the last week, and It •Mltto away a day at a time—and “tomorrow is the tart day of school.” To•afww corned, fair and full of a vernal The schoolhouse was never so

clean. Big boys scrubbed It last night and big girls hung evergreen and dogwood bloom and red bud all about the windows. 4MI the teacher's desk. Is a bower of beauty. Every pupil is there very early on the last day of school, dressed in his best ami bringing the little children—those too young to pay the regular price for the joys of a “last day.” Several guests come from’Other schools, escorted by pupils of this. The house is very full all the morning. The teacher is dressed very much the same. Of course. What more could be expected? Sometimes they would have a teacher—if So-and-so had got the school, instead of this teacher—or if such a teacher as this guest tells about had been employed here. But there isn't muph study or recitation in the forenoon. And at “recess"

! the big boys who had left far the spring I work drop around and conclude to stay. The noon Intermission Is uncommonly long. It begins rather before the usual time and i» is unaccountably extended. Every one does have such an excellent time playing, and the day is so delightfully warm! Then come the exercises—“the exhibition.” The big girls have a curtain stretched across the end of the room and behind it isrimpenetrable mystery. There are a few lessons on drilled topics. so that parents may be proud of children who answer wonderful things correctly. And when that is done the curtain rises and “Miss Clarissa Pip-

pinger” recites “Stay, Jailer, Stay,” receiving a very formidable applause when she bows aud signals the curtain to go down. Benny Collins recites “The Sailor Boy’s Dream,” Kate Calloway and Norah Hattery sing “QJi, Come, Come Away,” as a duet, and'Joflg John Smith thunders through tfye'defense of Cataline. ■' Sandwiched in between the big people are ekercises from all the little youngsters, whose mothers—whose fathers, too, i>ossibly—are present, and a one-act drama is presented to the entire satisfacUon of the audience—and Duse can don# more than that. And, then, somehow or other, *when the last “song of the school” has been sung, when the curtain has been lifted

and lowered for the last time, when there Is a sense of grounding this side of port—that unspeakable teacher Is up and talking. For the first time the sense of pupils takes in this larger fact. “Last day of school” means a severance pf ties, a farewell to some things that were pleasant, a loss of this man—and "It is a loss. It must be, for looking back from this height not a thing can be recalled wherein he did wrong. On what

i basis sat the framework of his bad character no one can see, for not a ' memory there retains a chatge against ; him. He is crying a little himself. The women are all crying because their children are crying to see him cry. And the men are altogether serious. The big boys blow their noses to hide the rise of tears, and the big girls dry their eyes very daringly. There is a luncheon spread all over the desks and benches later, and from wagons hitched along the road outside come baskets full of country dainties. There is an abundance of honest cheer. The windows and doors are open, for the afternoon is so warm. And then come farewells, when the teacher shakes hands with boys who have hated him bitterly all winter—boys who cordially honor him now; when he just misses being tender in his good-by to the girls; when he finally rounds out the work with mingled grief and pleasure, locks the door, gives the key to the director, watches the bundles of books and bundles of pupils tread slowly away, hearts big with the greatness of “the last day of school,” and then turns from the whole picture forever.

Modern schools have added many features the old system needed. No doubt there are better results from graded work, since the books say so. But there is no last day of school so stupendous in its interest, so sweet to erase antipathies, so strong to weld friendships, as the last day of school which has drifted one-third of a century into the past. vs course examinations are good things, since all the teachers have them, but they do not lend a gracious blessing to the last day of school. They spill a drop of bitterness into the pupil’s cup of bliss on this final day of a long companionship, and they make promotion very dearly purchased. Of course they are good. Of course they are right. That is conceded by every teacher’s institute in forty commonwealths. But that, or the city style, or stage effects, or a decorous absence on the part of parents or a promised departure on the part of the teacher has deprived creation of its “last day of school.”

SA ILOR BOY'S DREAM.

“THE DEFENSE OF CATALINE.”

A ONE-ACT DRAMA IS PLAYED.

ADUET, “OH! COME, COME AWAY.”