Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 November 1875 — Our Schoolmaster. [ARTICLE]

Our Schoolmaster.

There have been a good many complaints recently about the inefficiency of the teacher of our public school, Mr. Weaver. And last week the Board of Supervisors, having collected some facts in reference to his method of instruction, summoned him before them, and Maj. Long, the President, examined Weaver in reference to the matter. He said: “ Mr.- Weaver, the Board is not satisfied entirely with your way of imparting instruction to the youthful mind, and we called you before us to-day to ascertain what the general drift of your purpose was on certain occasions that have come under our notice, when you have been giving the boys what you seem to have considered useful information upon a variety of topics. For instance, Mr. Weaver, in teaching the history class, we feel compelled to take exception to your views "When you assert that Benjamin Franklin was shot at the battle of Agincourt and that Nebuchadnezzar was King of Italy and played the fiddle while Quebec was burning. You may possibly have later information upon those topics than has reached the rest of us, but the community is prejudiced against these views and they make you unpopular.” “Idon’t recollect saying that,” said Weaver ? “but just as likely as not I may have said Agincourt instead of Waterloo and got Nebuchadnezzar mixed up with William the Conqueror. I was sick that day and my mind didn’t work right, somehow.” “ And besides, Mr. Weaver, we feel as if we ought to direct your attention to the fact that you were wrong when you instructed the class in grammar that Martin Van Buren is an adverb, and that the word ‘ hungry’ is a personal pronoun. These mistakes are serious enough, but when you flogged a scholar because he insisted that ‘bucolic’ was not an intransitive preposition and that it did not represent a species of stomach-ache, it seems to the Board that you went a little too far.” “It wasn’t for that I licked him, ” said Mr. Weaver. “It was because he put a pin in my chair. I was only in fun about those things. I knew well enough Martin Van Buren was an adjective.” “ Well, sir, that may or may not be a satisfactory explanation. But the Board would like you to explain why it in going over the Scripture lesson you instructed that Petrarch was one of the twelve apostles, and that he used to fish with an artificial fly; and we should also be glad to know your authority for the statement that Garibaldi was a Saracen who fought against the Crusaders, and that he received his naihe from the fact that he was bald-headed? You see the parents of the children complain about this kind of thing. They don’t like it. They say it poisons the mind of the little ones, and it makes parents mad.” “I’m soriy,” replied Weaver v “but I hold those views conscientiously, and I’m going to stick to them.” “ But, Mr. Weaver, such a theory will hardly avail to explain why you asserted to the class in arithmetic that vulgar fractions- were so called because only blacks uards use them; and why you made Mr. loyle’s boy go downfoot for saying that there were only two halves to an apple. The community is indignant at these

things, Bir, and when they learn that you taught those little innocentß to spell 4 dog' d-a-w-g I am seriously afraid that public sentiment will be strongly in favor ot having recourse to violent measures. Now you certainly know there is no respectable authority for spelling the name of that useful animal d-a-w-g. It is preposterous. It' shows a want of a proper sense of the fitness of things, now don’t it?” *• . “ Well, may be it does. But I’ll, tell you. Every body spells dog the other way, d-a-u-g, and it struck me that it’d be a good idea for my scholars to start out on a fresh, original basis; to get up something new, and startling, and refreshing, in the dog line, and so I threw d-a-w-g out as a kind of an idea —a mere suggestion, you understand, without intending to insist on it But I don’t mind coming down on that. I’ll give it to them the old way if you insist on it.” “ Very well. But while we’ are going over the matter permit me to urge that you could have had no respectable authority for telling the school that Omaha is the capital of Mexico, and that the Revolutionary war began in 1812; and still less is there any warrant for your assertion to the pupils in history that the middle name of Gen. Washington was McGrath — George McGrath Washington. This sort of education of the infant mind attracts attention and excites remark. It brings ridicule upon the sacred name of the Father of his Country, and leads the children astray respecting the geographical location or Omaha. It is wrong, sir—all wrong; and the Board can’t put up with it.” “ Well, the way I came to do that, I s’pose,” said Weaver, “ was that I used to know a man named George Washington McGrath, and I must have confused him with the other one. And as for Omaha, I’ll bet you it is in Mexico, or Siam, or Siberia, or some of them places; now ain’t it?” “The Board, Mr. Weaver, do not think it worth while to pursue this subject further ; but while we are here I may as well mention that in that poem which you wrote as an example for the class in English composition we find rather too much lovity for such a serious matter as the education of children. It is not solely that you make ‘Mazeppa’ rhyme with ‘pepper’ nor that you cause ‘frolic’ to rhyme with ‘ colic’ and ‘ bowels’ with ‘vowels,’ but when you bring in ‘heifer’ as a rhyme for ‘zephyr’ the Board feels that you have probably gone a little too far and that your usefulness as a guide and instructor of youth is perhaps ended. We think, Mr. Weaver, that we had better ask you to resign. And if you will permit me I would offer in a friendly spirit the suggestion that if you can procure permanent employment somewhere in a whitewashing establishment or as an operator upon a saw-horse perhaps your intellectual gifts may find a higher and more cordial appreciation.” They are looking for a new pedagogue now who is sounder on the commonly-re-ceived theories about things.—“J lax Adeler," in N. Y. Weekly.