Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 53, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 March 1910 — A REAL EDUCATION. [ARTICLE]

A REAL EDUCATION.

David Swing, one of the most distinguished preachers of his time, was a farmer’s boy, and knew the privations common to the settlers of ths early West. J. F. Newton, one of his schoolmates, writes of him as follows. In a recent book entitled. “David Swing, Poet-Preacher":

“The pages of my memory contain no more delightful records than those made by David Swing, when we both attended the district school at Williamsburg, Ohio. "Those who were intimate, with him in boyhbod can trace the beginnings of his worth and eminence to his lovable disposition and bright, intellectual traits as they appeared th his youthful sports and .earliest occupa-

"He could run and Skate and swim with any of his set. but he could not bear to take the life of any living thing. “There was a vein of silliness in him, a ,_droll, dry humor, made the more comical by a slow, drawling voice, which always caused a titter from the long reading class which wound all round the old log schoolhouse. *4 have often thought that for one born, as David was, to feel the hardness of the world, his humor was a saving grace.

“He was eager to know and quick to'learn, .excelling in mathematics, history and composition, and, I must add, in every kind of innocent prankishness. One day, left to act as monitor of the school, he solemnly called the roll in rhyme, using all the nicknames and Inventing others to suit his jingle. Some of T the names coined by him that day were so apt that they followed their wearers for many years. He was a good story-teller, and there was no end to his making puns." Of his own boyhood Mr. Swing wrote:

"I never swore but once, and the oath made so loud a report that it frightened me. It was on the Fourth of July, and I was walking to a big -celebration. There had been a rain the night before and the road was muddy. I fell into a puddle and was obliged to return home and have my trousers dried. I had only one pair.

t*-I had no overcoat till I was a member of the senior class in college. Was I cold? No, I went without one and did not get cold. Nobody_got cold then. ——■ ■ -

"Plowing and hoeing, sowing and reaping, mending fences and going to mill filled the year with toil, and only a few months in the winter were left for school. But I studied nights, kept my own grade, and voted myself the honors.”