formula that it had an alliterative sound. Nevertheless, Ralph was
master from this time until the spelling-school came. If only it had not
been for that spelling-school! Many and many a time after the night of
the fatal spelling-school Ralph used to say, "If only it had not been
for that spelling-school!"

There had to be a spelling-school. Not only for the sake of my story,
which would not have been worth the telling if the spelling-school had
not taken place, but because Flat Creek district had to have a
spelling-school. It is the only public literary exercise known in
Hoopole County. It takes the place of lyceum lecture and debating club.
Sis Means, or, as she wished now to be called, Mirandy Means, expressed
herself most positively in favor of it. She said that she 'lowed the
folks in that district couldn't in no wise do without it. But it was
rather to its social than to its intellectual benefits that she
referred. For all the spelling-schools ever seen could not enable her to
stand anywhere but at the foot of the class. There is one branch
diligently taught in a backwoods school. The public mind seems impressed
with the difficulties of English orthography, and there is a solemn
conviction that the chief end of man is to learn to spell. "'Know
Webster's Elementary' came down from Heaven," would be the backwoods
version of the 'Greek saying but that, unfortunately for the Greeks,
their fame has not reached so far. It often happens that the pupil does
not know the meaning of a single word in the lesson. This is of no
consequence. What do you want to know the meaning of a word for? Words
were made to be spelled, and men were probably created that they might
spell them. Hence the necessity for sending a pupil through the
spelling-book five times before you allow him to begin to read, or
indeed to do anything else. Hence the necessity for those long
spelling-classes at the close of each forenoon and afternoon session of