But chronology is dull work. Let us revert to anecdote, and, in so doing, to the old-fashioned grammar school. The Rev. John Barnard of Marblehead (who was born at Boston in 1681), after attending the instruction of a schoolmistress in the town and another in the country, was sent to the Latin School in his eighth year, where he was under the tuition of "the aged, venerable, and justly famous Mr. Ezekiel Cheever," one of the most noted of New England preceptors. In his autobiography, written when he was eighty-five years old, Mr. Barnard tells a pretty little story of "an odd accident" which "drove him from the school after a few weeks":- "There was," he says, " an older lad entered the school the same week with me; we strove who should outdo; and he beat me by the help of a brother in the upper class, who stood behind master with the accidence open for him to read out off; by which means he could recite his [MS. illegible] three and four times in a forenoon, and the same in the afternoon; but I who had no such help, and was obliged to commit all to memory, could not keep pace with him; so that he would be always one lesson before me. My ambition could not bear to be outdone, and in such a fraudulent manner, and therefore I left the school." 1 But he soon returned and got on very well in his studies, notwithstanding he was, as he confesses," a very naughty boy, much given to play." At length Mr. Cheever resorted to an ingenious device. "You Barnard," said he, "I know you can do well enough if you will; but you are so full of play that you hinder your classmates from getting their lessons; and therefore, if any of them cannot perform their duty, I shall correct you for it." "One unlucky day, one of my classmates did not look into his book, and there R. N. Meriam, Collections of the Worcester Society of Antiquity, IX, no. 27, pp. 93 f. 1 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., 3d Series, V, 178. fore could not say his lesson, though I called upon him once and again to mind his book; upon which our master beat me. I told master the reason why he could not say his lesson was, his declaring he would beat me if any of the class were wanting in their duty; since which this boy would not look into his book, though I called upon him to mind his book, as the class could witness. The boy was pleased with my being corrected, and persisted in his neglect, for which I was still corrected, and that for several days. I thought, in justice, I ought to correct the boy, and compel him to a better temper; and therefore, after school was done, I went up to him, and told him I had been beaten several times for his neglect; and since master would not correct him I would, and I should do so as often as I was corrected for him; and then drubbed him heartily. The boy never came to school any more, and so that unhappy affair ended."1 The temptation to go on with Mr. Barnard's delightful anecdotes of his boyhood is great, but must be resisted. Still, we may indulge ourselves in one more extract, which is very brief, and gives a charming picture of the little boy and the veteran schoolmaster: I remember once, in making a piece of Latin, my master found fault with the syntax of one word, which was not so used by me heedlessly, but designedly, and therefore I told him there was a plain grammar rule for it. He angrily replied, there was no such rule. I took the grammar and showed the rule to him. Then he smilingly said, "Thou art a brave boy; I had forgot it." And no wonder; for he was then above eighty years old.2 Mr. Cheever was master of the Boston Latin School for nearly forty years. He died in 1708, at the age of ninetythree, and was honored with a singular poetical tribute from 1 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., 3d Series, V, 179-80. 2 The same, p. 180. the pen of Benjamin Tompson, "the renowned poet of New England." It bore a title prophetic of Browning, "The Grammarians Funeral," and was printed as a broadside.2 It begins: Eight Parts of Speech this Day wear Mourning Gowns And not declined, Adverbs and Conjunctions, In Lillies Porch they stand to do their functions. Was still observed in the Interjection. This is quaint enough, but the oddest thing about the verses is that they are announced in the broadside as having been originally "composed upon the Death of Mr. John Woodmancy, formerly a School-Master in Boston: But now Published upon the Death of the Venerable Mr. Ezekiel Chevers." In other words, a second-hand elegy! The chapter may close with a bit from the Almanac for 1807 (July), which will serve as a fitting epilogue to our pedagogical miscellany :: I have more pork in my cellar, said neighbor Braggadocia, than all the Almanack makers in christendom. Fie on your larnin, and all that stuff; I wants none of your nonsense. No man shall teach me, faith. Now I forebore to dispute with this great man; for the proverb says, you cannot make a silken purse of a sow's ear. 1 See pp. 356 f., below. 2 Reproduced by Dr. Samuel A. Green in his Ten Fac-Simile Reproductions, Boston, 1902, No. III. T TITLES OF HONOR HE Almanac for 1794 contains "A complete list of the present CONGRESS of the UNITED STATES." At the head stand GEORGE WASHINGTON, LL. D., President of the United States, JOHN ADAMS, LL. D., Vice-President of the United States, and President of the Senate. The degree of Doctor of Laws attached to these names at once arrests the eye. Such things were more valued in those days than they are at present. No one would think of specifying a President's academic honors nowadays. We are reminded of the satirical words of John Adams himself in a letter addressed to Mrs. Mercy Warren, the historian, in 1807: There is not a country under heaven in which titles and precedency are more eagerly coveted than in this country. The title of Excellency, and Honor, and Worship, of Councillor, Senator, Speaker, Major-General, Brigadier-General, Colonel, LieutenantColonel, Major, Captain, Lieutenant, Ensign, Sergeant, Corporal, and even Drummer and Fifer, is sought with as furious zeal as that of Earl, Marquis, or Duke in any other country; and as many intrigues and as much corruption in many cases, are used to obtain them.1 There is a curious little error afloat with regard to Washington's LL. D. It is often asserted, even by careful writers, that he was the first person to receive this 1 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., 5th Series, IV, 439. honor from Harvard College. The mistake dates from 1840, when President Quincy's official History of Harvard University was published. There we read: 66 After the evacuation of the town of Boston by the British troops, which took place on the 17th of March, 1776, congratulatory addresses from towns and legislatures were universally presented to General Washington, for the signal success which had attended his measures. The Corporation and Overseers, in accordance with the prevailing spirit and as an expression of the gratitude of this College for his eminent services in the cause of his country and to this society," conferred on him the degree of Doctor of Laws, by the unanimous vote of both boards. General Washington was the first individual on whom this degree was conferred by Harvard College. The diploma was signed by all the members of the Corporation except John Hancock, who was then in Philadelphia, and it was immediately published in the newspapers of the period, with an English translation. 1 In point of fact, the diploma to which President Quincy refers bears the signature of a man on whom the same degree had been conferred three years before, in 1773. This was the distinguished Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy, John Winthrop, the fourth in descent from Governor Winthrop, and he, not Washington, was the first person to receive an LL. D. from Harvard College.2 Washington's diploma deserves to be reproduced, in the English translation which appeared in the Boston papers of the time. It is a good specimen of the academic eloquence of the eighteenth century: The CORPORATION of HARVARD COLLEGE in Cambridge, in New-England, to all the faithful in Christ, to whom these Presents shall come, GREETING. 1 II, 167. 2 H. H. Edes, Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, VII. |