USA > Pennsylvania > Philadelphia County > Philadelphia > Annals of Philadelphia, and Pennsylvania in the olden time; being a collection of the memoirs, anecdotes, and incidents of the earliest settlements of the inland part of Pennsylvania, Vol. I > Part 35
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The city academy, began in 1750, under the exertions and aus- pices of Doctor Franklin, was originally built for Whitfield's meeting house in 1741; the academy started with a subscription sum of £2600. In 1753, it was created a "college," and in 1779, " the university." For further facts concerning " the academy," see that article.
In 1770, a Mr. Griscom advertises his private academy, "free from the noise of the city," at the north end. It may surprise some to learn that this was a long stone building on Front and Water streets a little above Vine street ;- being two stories high on Front street, and three stories on Water street, once beautifully situated, when no population was crowded near it, and having a full and open view to the river; it afterwards stood a desolate, neglected looking building, filled with numerous poor tenantry, until a few years ago, bearing with its inmates, the name of "the College," although they had long lost the cause of such a name.
This Mr. Griscom may be regarded as the first individual among us who ventured to assume the title of "Academy" to any private institution. The simple, unassuming appellation of "school" was the universal name till about the year 1795 ; after that time "acade- mies," " seminaries," "lyceums," " institutes," &c., were per- petually springing up in every quarter among us. Before those days " ladies' academies and Misses boarding schools" were un- known ; boys and girls were accustomed to go to the same schools.
Mr. Horton first started the idea of a separate school for girls, and with it the idea of instructing them in grammar and other learning ; and about the year 1795, Poor's "academy for young ladies," in Cherry street, became a place of proud distinction to "finished" females; and their annual " commencement days" and exhibition in the great churches, was an affair of great interest and street parade.
Old Mr. Smith taught for Friends, at Pine street meeting. After he got very old, he was allowed, as an indulgence, to keep it at his own house, in the third story, in Walnut street near Front street. VOL I .- 2 M 25
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One of his scholars, now in years and grave enough, tells me that it was his custom to have them all stand up to read from the Bible, while he set copies and made pens. He did not perceive that for three or four months we always read, "Nebuchednezar, the king, set up an image of gold." When prizes arrived they would fire, then the boys would contrive to slip off and bring in the news! The names of all the privateers and captains were quite familiar to them. Andrew Brown was a noted teacher after the peace, at the northwest corner of Third and Vine streets. He began the Phila- delphia Gazette-his whole family and house were burnt. W. Kid had a large school at the old Mason's lodge.
My school boy days-my school boy days, Oh! how they flit across the mind, With all their little gairish plays, Like some bright vision, far behind.
How beautiful-how fresh-how fair-
How purely vivid every scene : Life's very newness printed there, With scarce a shade to intervene.
Yes-there they stand-life's greatest spot- Never retraced-yet never forgot!
My facetious friend, Lang Syne, has presented a lively picture of the " schoolmasters" in the days last referred to, when "precep- tors," "principals, &c.," were yet unnamed. Those who can recollect those instructers which he describes, in connexion with their own boyhood and school discipline, will feel the force of many interesting associations-long forgotten emotions will revive in the mind as they look on the painted picture so feelingly touched to the life, to wit : About that time there were no boarding schools, nor " didactic seminaries" in the city. The young ladies' academy, by Mr. Poor, used to hold its commencement in the Moravian meeting house. The old academy on Fourth street was the only one (as such) in the city for young gentlemen. The principal of the academy, in person, was middle size, round, and strongly built, habited as a clergyman, in parson's gray suit, cocked hat, and full bottomed powdered wig-with an imperturbable stare, and promi- nent gray eyes. Of single schools, Lyttle, Gartly, and Yerkes, were the only ones remembered. What is now known as " Friends' Academy," in Fourth, below Chestnut, was at that time occupied by four different masters. The west room, down stairs, by Robert Proud, Latin master; the one above him, by William Waring, teacher of astronomy and mathematics ; the east room, up stairs, by Jeremiah Paul; and the one below, "last not least in our" re- membrance, by J. Todd,-severe he was. The State house clock, being at the time visible from the school pavement, gave to the eye full notice when to break off marble and plug top, hastily collect the " stakes," and bundle in, pell mell, to the school room, where, until the arrival of the " master of scholars," John Todd, they were busily
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employed, every one, in finding his place, under the control, for the time, of a short Irishman, usher, named Jimmy M'Cue. On the entrance of the master, all shuffling of the feet, "scrougeing !" hitting of elbows, and whispering disputes, were hastily adjusted, leaving a silence which might be felt, " not a mouse stirring." He, Todd, dressed after the plainest manner of Friends, but of the richest material, with looped cocked hat, was at all times remarkably nice and clean in his person-a man of about 60 years, square built, and well sustained by bone and muscle.
After an hour, may be, of quiet time, every thing going smoothly on-boys at their tasks-no sound, but from the master's voice, while hearing the one standing near him-a dead calm -- when sud- denly a brisk slap on the ear or face, for something or for nothing, gave " dreadful note" that an irruption of the lava was now about to take place-next thing to be seen was "strap in full play over the head and shoulders of Pilgarlic. The passion of the master " grow- ing by what it fed on," and wanting elbow room, the chair would be quickly thrust on one side, when, with sudden gripe, he was to be seen dragging his struggling suppliant to the flogging ground, in the centre of the room-having placed his left foot upon the end of a bench, he then, with a patent jerk, peculiar to himself, would have the boy completely horsed across his knee, with his left elbow on the back of his neck, to keep him securely on. In the hurry of the moment he would bring his long pen with him, griped between his strong teeth, (visible the while,) causing the both ends to descend to a parallel with his chin, and adding much to the terror of the scene. His face would assume a deep claret colour-his little bob of hair would disengage itself, and stand out, each " particular hair," as it were, " up in arms, and eager for the fray." Having his victim thus completely at command, and all useless drapery drawn up to a bunch above the waistband, and the rotundity and the nankeen in the closest affinity possible for them to be, then, once more to the " staring crew," would be exhibited the dexterity of master and strap. By long practice he had arrived at such perfection in the exercise, that, moving in quick time, the fifteen inches of bridle rein (alias strap) would be seen, after every cut, elevated to a perpendicular above his head ; from whence it descended like a flail upon the stretched nan- keen, leaving, "on the place beneath," a fiery red streak at every slash. It was customary with him to address the sufferer at intervals as follows :- Does it hurt ?- (O ! yes master, O ! don't, master,) then I'll make it hurt thee more-I'll make thy flesh creep-thou sha'n't want a warming pan to night-intolerable being !- Nothing in nature is able to prevail upon thee, but my strap. He had one boy named George Fudge, who usually wore leather breeches, with which he put strap and its master at defiance. He would never acknowledge pain-he would not "sing out." He seized him one day, and having gone through the evolutions of strapping, (as useless in effect as if he had been thrashing a flour bag,) almost breathless with rage
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he once more appealed to the feelings of the "reprobate," by saying- Does it not hurt? The astonishment of the school and the master was completed on hearing him sing out No !- Hurray for Leather Crackers ! He was thrown off immediately, sprawling on the floor, with the benediction as follows: Intolerable being! Get out of my school-nothing in nature is able to prevail upon thee-not even my strap !
"T'was not his " love of learning was in fault," so much as the old British system of introducing learning and discipline into the brains of boys and soldiers by dint of punishment. The system of flogging on all occasions, in schools, for something or for nothing, being pro- tected by law, gives free play to the passions of the master, which he, for one, exercised with great severity. The writer has at this moment in his "memory" a schoolmaster, then of this city, who, a few years ago, went deliberately out of his school to purchase a cow skin, with which, on his return, he extinguished his bitter re- venge on a boy who had offended him. The age of chivalry pre- ferred ignorance in its sons, to having them subjected to the fear of a pedagogue-believing that a boy who had quailed under the eye of the schoolmaster, would never face the enemy with boldness on the field of battle; which, it must be allowed, is a "swing of the pendulum" too far the other way. A good writer says : " We do not harden the wax to receive the impression !- wherefore, the teacher seems himself most in need of correction !- for he, unfit to teach, is making them unfit to be taught !"
I have been told by an aged gentleman, that in the days of his boyhood, sixty-five years ago, when boys and girls were schooled to- gether, it was a common practice to make the boys strip off their jackets, and loose the trousers' band, preparatory to hoisting them upon a boy's back, so as to get his whipping, with only the linen between the flesh and the strap. The girls too,-we pity them ! were obliged to take off their stays to receive their floggings with equal sensibility. He named one distinguished lady, since, who was so treated, among others, in his school. All the teachers then were from England or Ireland, and brought with them the rigorous principles, which had before been whipped into themselves at home.
"Young Ladies' Academy, No. 9 Cherry Street."-I see this so noticed in the City Directory of 1802, saying of it then, that " this is the only incorporated institution for young ladies in the United States, and is now in a very flourishing state." It was incorporated the 2d February, 1792, (see the act.) The same, I believe, called also "Mr. Poor's Academy," which professed to teach "reading, writing, arithmetic, grammar, geography, with the use of the maps and globes ; rhetoric and vocal music. Mr. Poor himself was a good singer of psalmody from New England, a member of the Presbyte- rian church. The incorporated academy had a good array of names, say in 1802,-Rev. Samuel Magaw, President ; Rev. Henry Hel- muth, Vice president ; James A. Neal, Principal ; Benjamin Say
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Secretary ; and twelve trustees, six of whom were clergymen, the other six, laymen. It died at last, by what cause I know not ; pro- bably by too much rivalship, and a lessened support.
The preceding intimation of vocal music as being, then, first so taught, as a part of female accomplishment, brings up to the memory much of the recollections of the past concerning young ladies. At that time, pianos were just beginning to be introduced, slowly and discouragingly to the teachers. They were just then beginning to supersede the former occasional use of the harpsicord and spinet, and sometimes the guitar. It may possibly surprise the present race of young ladies, to learn that their dames and grand-dames, with far less painful drilling and practice, much surpassed them in agreeable and touching singing. They not only sang far more natural and in character with their sex, but the sense and fitness of the subject, were considered with far more good sense and solid entertainment. This they might well cherish and require then,-for no singing was deem- ed " singing for company," which did not distinctly give the sense. None then had heard or dreamed of a singing which was to be screamed, secundum artem, in alto voices, or shivered into trills of thirty-two demisemiquavers in a breath,-and, in which the words and sense are to be strangled in the overwhelming execution ! For this morbid fashion and change for the worse, we are wholly in- debted to "the band of foreign artistes." It comes, indeed, from art and contrivance, and can only please those who may themselves have experienced the abundance of pains-taking, which it must have cost the performer to be thus, as far as possible, removed from the proper excellence " of the human voice divine."
One can hardly write upon the subject of education, looking at the present and thinking of the past, without a disposition to go out of our usual track, and give a passing notice of things as they are. We talk of the march of mind, and please ourselves with the notion, that "the school master is abroad,"-and thence, easily slide into the belief that we are effecting great and useful changes for the bet- ter. But is it really so ? Let us look a little at facts, for we are all deeply interested-first for our own children, and next for their pos- terity. The constitution has provided for the general education, and our legislators, too willing to leave to others what should be faithfully managed by the state, make grant after grant to endow sectarian establishments. They give up to a few dominant churches to rule and engross-not sufficiently considering, that although it may be popular with the ascendant beneficiaries, it is not in its nature, like a liberal provision, equally and alike for the whole. Even those who are benefited, as things now operate, would not be well pleased to see the same measures of assistance extended to Papists, Unitarians, Universalists, and others. And at this time, the Friends, Moravians, Papists, Lutherans, Swedenborgians, Jews, &c. have no portion or share in the matter, whilst Deists and non-prc fessors, as a matter of course, have no claim or pretension, althoug
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equally citizens of the state, and in the opinion of many, most needing right education. All this is the obvious result of sectarian legislation, and may be considered as its natural consequence, when it is conceded, as it has been, that the clergy, as a class (we speak it with deference,) are to be considered as charged, by virtue of their office and ministry, " to raise up your future judges, legislators, law- yers, physicians, and school masters ;" "to provide for the future career of the rising generation, by giving them the aid of science and literature ;"-and, " to instruct the people, and send out teachers by thuasanas for the schools." It was not always so! " So did not St. Paul." And, as early as the Blue Laws of Connecticut, it was there provided that " no minister should teach a school." They had, per- haps, seen with regret the union of church and state in their father- land; and had witnessed how the two great colleges in England, originally endowed for poor scholars, had come to be possessed by chancellors, vice-chancellors, pro-vice-chancellors, proctors, &c., with their fat livings ; and how the chambers and forms were engrossed by the gentry and nobility, and their religious bias pledged to the dominant sect.
It has been a commended practice of modern times, that the col- leges can annually send out educated school masters to teach common schools, for short seasons, while they themselves are actually students to higher ulterior purposes. This, in its effect, is but a sadly retro- grade motion. What care they for the advancement of the scholars, who are themselves only using them as stepping stones to higher aims? How can they give sufficient and efficient aid to heedless boys, who are themselves engrossed with other designs? We may set it down as true, that no elementary teachers should be ambitious and aspiring, nor even " liberally paid," as has been so often reiterated. Common education, to become general, should be low in price, and the places be occupied by patient, unambitious men, of peculiar minds -such as most like retirement and freedom from business excitements, and who, for that cause, are well satisfied to content themselves with small things. There are such men-and there were such men. The good Anthony Benezet taught his scholars at ten shillings a quarter ; and we can remember the long and quiet lives of such school mas- ters as Lyttle, Todd, Trip, Clark, Rankin, Yerkes, Gartly, and others, at the same terms. They acquired a little home in a long life,-were quite content,-and only aimed at most to qualify their children for more aspiring situations. They never thought of vaca- tions and indulgences, wherein the pupils lost half as much by ab- sence as they had acquired. They conceived, and conceived truly, that their business was to make their scholars good writers, good arithmeticians, good readers, and intelligent grammarians ; - and then they justly inferred, that they were qualified by their own separate exertions, to improve themselves at home, if they would, in all manner of intellectual attainments, such as history, philosophy, belles-let bes, &c.
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Now, teachers go upon the principle that children have no natural friends to look after their improvement when out of school, and they thus affect to take the exclusive charge of them, and to make their pupils learn memoritur, the very things which they might attain by their own unassisted powers, after they had learnt the first principles in the schools. So much is this the case, that even boys and girls are to be taught, at a charge, how they may romp and play, to preserve their health, under the name of Gymnastics, &c.
On the whole, education is more perplexed, wearisome and an- noying than it used to be, at far greater charge, and with less effect. It affects to teach boys and girls chemistry, astronomy, botany, and ornamental branches, and leaves them with much less of arithmetic, fine running hands, good spelling and grammatical composition. The teachers, in the mean time, affect to imitate colleges in their vacations-a grant needful and well placed there, where the young men are deemed to be self-moved aspirants after fame and learning,- going there to finish their previous education, and being obliged to go home twice a year to distant places, to see relatives and friends, and to get new outfits. It is easy to believe that no day schools have any real occasion to become their imitators.
Coincident with all these innovations is the unsettled variety of school books ; so that every school seems to have its own class and order. Some grammars are so new and unlike those of the reading world, that after learning it, there is an occasion to learn the other, as a means to understand the ordinary terms of other men. Arith- metic, too, is changed from its fixed principles to be an affair of dex- terity, formed to wonder-strike parents and guardians in examination days. It destroys all former progressive gradation of addition, mul- tiplication, division, &c., and under the mixed up form of "mental arithmetic," and perplexing abstraction of tender minds, wears and tears our children to sickness or disgust.
We hardly know whether we should ask pardon for so lengthened an article on schooling and school learning or not. Many parents, we feel persuaded, will understand the subject and agree with our frank animadversions. Some teachers, we fear, will feel aggrieved, and we are sincerely unwilling to offend any. At the same time, we do know, that there are sundry instructers who do really deprecate the use of all mode and fashion in the exercise of education, and who sincerely believe that all time occupied in committing to memory in schools, whether in history, chronology, astronomy, chemistry, mine- ralogy, botany, natural and moral philosophy, &c., and all teachings in those branches, told in forms, which could be equally or better comprehended by mere reading, when freed from schools, is all a waste of precious time. In all these things, they could trench them- selves behind the warrant of the great Locke, who wisely said : - " Let your rules be as few as possible-else one or two things must happen, either to punish often for breaches which they cannot avoid. or else to overlook them, and so impair your authority and influence
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But rather settle in them in a succession of practice, and this not by books, in abstract consideration, but by your personal explanation and help." Again, we have it from Lord Bacon, that, "reading makes a full man, and thinking a correct man ;" and Mr. J. O. Tay- lor has said, "if we will but give the people books, and this ability to read, they can educate themselves ; and self-education is always the best education !" Will any consider ?
The youth of the present day have little or no conception of the great advance of agreeable and useful reading got up for their use, and especially by such an establishment as the Sunday School Union. In former days some half a dozen little popular works constituted their little all. They were such as Goody Two Shoes, Tom Thumb, Jack the Giant Killer, Jack and Gill, Poor Richard, Gulliver, Robin- son Crusoe, Baron Trenck, The Babes in the Wood. "Sure you remember the Babes in the Wood !" These were read out of school, and the New England Primer was a book of universal use in schools. It was called "New England," to contradistinguish it from the old England Primer, used in the colonial times. Little as was this six- penny book, it was a formidable concern to publish it. The exten- sive sale of it could alone sustain it as an undertaking, intended to compete with the imported copies. It was early undertaken by M. Carey and others of the trade, and in 1824 was stereotyped by Chandler & Co. Two or three of the various editions, now rare to be seen, are lying before me, from which I here make a few speci- men extracts. I give them, under a conviction that, simple and rude as the work may seem, it will revive numerous grateful recollections in many of the present aged, who will thus be called back to the con- templation of their school days, when
" With satchel and shining morning face, Creeping like snail-unwillingly to school."
The primer was entitled " easy lessons for attaining the true read- ing of English," beginning with a, b, c; and next followed by ba, be, bi, bo, bu. Lesson 12 says, "Billy, what do you think the world stands on ? I don't know, says Harry, but our Tom says it stands on a great turtle." It was a great thing to get onward as far as the middle, where rude little marginal pictures, done in lead engravings, were affixed to short couplets in alphabetical order, thus, viz :-
A. In Adam's falı, We sinned all.
B. Thy life to mend, This book attend.
C The Cat doth play,
And after slay .*
D. The Dog will bite, The thief at night. . Is out of sight.
E. An Eagle's flight,
F. The idle Fool,
Is whipt at school.
G. As runs the Glass, .
.
Man's life doth pass.
H. My book and Heart, .
Shall never part.
J. Job feels the rod, Yet blesses God.
K. Britain's King in spleen,
. Lost States thirteen.
* The picture represents puss erect playing the fiddle, and the rat dancing to it.
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L. The Lion bold,
M. The Moon gives light,
N. Nightingales sing,
O. The royal Oak it was the tree,
P. Peter denies
Q. Queen Esther comes in royal state, To save the Jews from dismal fate . His Lord and cries.
R. Rachel doth mourn,
S. Samuel anoints,
·
Whom God appoints.
U. Uriah's beauteous wife,
Made David seek his life.
W. Whales in the sea,
God's voice obey.
X. Xerxes the great did die, And so must you and I.
Y. Youth forward slips, . Death soonest nips .* ·
Z. Zaccheus he did climb the tree, His Lord to see.
At the close of the whole, came the awful picture and history of the burning of Mr. John Rogers, minister of the gospel, the first martyr in the time of Queen Mary, accompanied by his wife with nine small children, and one at the breast. Then followed many mournful and pathetic verses of advice to his children, saying :
Give ear, my children, to my word, Whom God hath dearly bought. Lay up his laws within your heart, And print them in your thought. I leave you here a little book, For you to look upon, That you may see your father's face, When he is dead and gone.
The picture and verses solemnized many a little heart, and were probably intended thus early to generate in protestant minds, an early and abiding aversion to papacy, once deemed an essential part of English education ; and it may not escape notice, that Mr. Carey, who was himself a papist, was liberal enough to give it the passport of his imprint as a publisher. It was in keeping with his publishing afterwards, and selling numerous copies of the protestant Bible.
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