THE CHILD IN SCHOOL


An elderly woman was talking to me not long ago about her childhood.

"No, my dear, I did not have a governess," she said, in answer to my
questionings. "Neither did I attend the public schools, though I lived
in the city. I went to a private school. The pupils in it were the girls
of the little social circle to which my parents belonged. There were
perhaps twenty of us in all. And there were three teachers; one for the
'first class,' one for the 'second class,' and a French-German-music-
and-drawing-teacher-in-one for both classes."

"And what did you study?" I asked.

"Besides French, German, music, and drawing?" my elderly friend mused.
"Well, we had the three R's; and history, English and American, and
geography, and deportment. I think that was all."

"And you liked it?" I ventured.

"Yes, my dear, I did," replied my friend, "though I used to pretend that
I didn't. I sometimes even 'played sick' in order to be allowed to stay
home from school. Children then, as now, thought they ought to 'hate to
go to school.' I believe most of them did, too. I happened to be a
'smart' child; so I liked school. I suppose 'smart' children still do."

A "smart" child! In my mind's eye I can see my elderly friend as one,
sitting at the "head" of her class, on a long, narrow bench, her eyes