The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 1, July 1897 - April, 1898 Page: 294
334 p. : ill., ports., maps ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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294 Texas Historical Association Quarterly.
and the chant continuing until the last one had found the bay as well
as the name. Then followed the capes, islands, mountains, rivers,
etc. There was a certain merit in this system which has not been
successfully incorporated in any other. We became familiar with
the outlandish proper names in geography, and formed a general
idea of their import and locality. It was a sort of game, also, and
we took delight in singing to a dull fellow until he found the ob-
ject and escaped to the winning side, usually taking revenge by
joining the screech to the next below until he also escaped. It
beat a whipping to make them diligent. In reading, our teacher
was fair only, but in penmanship he was excellent and successful,
notwithstanding my failure to profit by his precepts and examples.
He whipped the children cruelly, and I think more from petulance
on his part than fault on theirs, and the girls were not spared.
At this school one dark winter evening a neighbor visited us, and
after we were dismissed, announced, as a piece of news to carry to
our parents, that the Santa Fe expedition had arrived at that place
and surrendered without firing a gun. I well remember the shade
that passed over the boys' faces at the unwelcome tidings.
In February, 1842, I was taken on a journey to the States, which
cut short my attendance; but soon after I left an invasion reached
San Antonio; the larger boys went to the war and the school closed.
In the spring of 1843 another school opened in the same place,
taught by R. B. Wells, a Methodist minister, who had been sent to
our circuit that year. I think he was originally from Georgia,
though I am not sure; he may have come from Virginia. Wherever
he may have been born and bred, he was a scholar well qualified in
every way to teach almost any branch of learning, and withal a
gentleman. This school was the first I had seen or heard of that
dispensed with the rod in school. He managed to keep order by
keeping the children busy and by a dignified and gentle sway; he
never had a switch and never needed one; he never whipped
and never threatened but once, and that was to some boys or
young men as large as himself. Besides the ancient routine of
reading, writing, and arithmetic, he had classes in grammar, his-
tory, geometry, and surveying, and a class of one, the author of
these memoirs, in Latin. He managed to give attention to all
and keep the students interested, and I believe that each and every
one of them was richly rewarded mentally and morally for the time
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Texas State Historical Association. The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 1, July 1897 - April, 1898, periodical, 1897/1898; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101009/m1/320/: accessed April 27, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.