AN ANCIENT SCHOOL-DAME. BY EMILY S. GILMAN. E ARLY in this century, a young girl living at Norwich, Conn., in the Falls neighborhood, close by the papermill bridge, was unexpectedly summoned to fill the place of a teacher who had been called away. To the committee men who came for her, she modestly replied that she was only fourteen, but they were quite sure that she was old enough and knew enough to take the school for a few weeks. What school it was, whether in the brick school-house where she afterwards taught for years, or in a small building that once stood north of the residence of Mrs. L. F. S. Foster, does not appear, but we know that it was Miss Sally Goodell who thus began what proved to be her life work. Miss Goodell died Feb. 4, 1879, lacking but a few days of the age of 87 years. It is said that she did not give up teaching finally until she was 80. so that she had taught more than sixty years, and her pupils must have numbered more than five hundred, representing most of the even down families about town, Often a as far as Chelsea Parade. whole family of boys and girls, half to her school a dozen of them, came one after the other, and in several instances, the children of her early pupils came to be under her instruction. An especially noteworthy fact is that both Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin Huntington, all their children, and one or more of their grandchildren, were pupils of Miss Goodell. There are still preserved four little manuscript books in which Miss Goodell recorded the names of her scholars for a period of thirty-five years. A goodly list indeed, including many familiar names, Arms, Bliss, Coit, Everest, Gilman, Harland, Havens, Huntington, Lathrop, Mitchell, Perkins, Stedman, Strong, and many more. And it is pleasant to remember that many of these boys and girls have made their mark in the world as useful men and women; clergymen, foreign missionaries, lawyers, men of letters, a Judge in the United States Circuit Court, a Brigadier-General, and men of affairs, among them. No attempt has ever been made to bring them together to pay a tribute to the memory of their teacher, but the reminiscences of pupils of various periods will help us to form definite impressions of Miss Goodell and her school. She was herself a pupil of Miss Mary Marsh who taught school for several years in Norwich Town, in a small building, no longer standing, near the Havens house now owned by Mrs. Henry Potter. After Miss Marsh married and removed from Norwich to Utica in 1811, Mrs. Thomas Lathrop was interested in having another private school opened in the neighborhood, to which she might send two little girls in her own family. She persuaded Miss Goodell to come uptown and teach. The school was opened in the Adgate house, no longer standing, and at first the sessions were held in the front room, but later in the room looking west, so much pleasanter with its broad outlook over the meadows. Charles Stedman was probably the only boy in the school at this time—a delicate, pretty little fellow, and, of course, quite a pet. Even in this little school the excitement of going to the head of the class was not wanting, and the gleeful cry is still remembered, "Little Charley Stedman has got above big Sally Bliss." Lois Lee (Mrs. Sargent), Cornelia Lathrop (Mrs. Willis), Mary Bill (Mrs. Jones), and Hannah Lathrop (Mrs. Ripley) were also among the scholars. Miss Goodell continued to live at the Falls, and brought her dinner for the short nooning. But one happy day the storm was too severe for the teacher to come, but not too severe for the pupils all to gather with their dinner baskets. Such a good merry time as they all had, with no teacher, a whole house at their disposal, and liberty to stay all day. Every part of the house was explored, even the cellar, though to venture there called for some courage, but, once gained, it proved a delightful place, with its door opening upon the yard below. How long this school was continued does not appear, but the names of some of these early scholars are to be found in Miss Goodell's records already mentioned. Her first entry is "Began school on my own account, July 14, 1817," and we find' mentioned the payment of rent, $3.00 a quarter to Mrs. L'Hommedieu, for more than three years. This was for a room in a red building, on the present grounds of the W. W. Backus Hospital, nearly opposite Mr. Joseph Strong's barn which stood at the foot of his garden. The building was used as a workshop, and the school room was over the shop. There was a dark closet under the stairs, used as a place of punishment. The school term opened with 13 scholars, and the number increased to 25. In the winter she paid stove rent and wood bill, together amounting to $3.50. November 6, 1820 she taught in Miss Harland's shop, here she paid $2.00 a quarter rent. "The entrance was through the court or yard of the Harland house and beyond the school house was the Throop homestead, and the brick school house at that time used as a public school, Miss Goodell's little scholars looking askance at the big town boys who went there." Among the pupils here were Donald G. Mitchell and his brother and sisters, and the children of Mr. Charles P. Huntington, Benjamin F., James M., Ruth L., (Mrs. Ripley) and William Henry, who lived for many years in Paris. Of the latter Mr. Mitchell says "Of associates on those school benches I remember with most distinctness a tallish boy, my senior by two years or so, who befriended me in many skirmishes, decoyed me often into his leafy door yard, half way to my home, where luscious cherries grew, and by a hundred kindly offices during many succeeding years cemented a friendship of which I have been always proud." In 1824 the Goodell family removed from the Falls to the house opposite the Harlands, and the next spring the school was moved to that house, but the following year it was again located in Miss Harland's shop. In 1830 we find it transferred to the brick school house where it continued for four years, the next move being across the street to Mrs. Pierce's house (the Rufus Huntington house), where Gager's store. now stands. There was a dark closet here also, and a very high narrow shelf over the fire place where sometimes the naughty children were seated. They 474 were afraid to move lest they should fall, and probably dreaded this more than any other discipline. One boy reported being put into the stove for some misdemeanor. Probably in summer! It was in May, 1836, that Miss Goodell my school to my new school says "Moved house," which many remember as an old unpainted building on the corner of the Goodell lot, standing flush to the street, with the door facing to the south. One of her scholars thus describes it "The little old school house was innocent of paint, both outside and inside. Around the wall was a row of desks, made so that as the scholars faced inward, their backs would come against the sharp edge of the desks. In front, near the stove, were the small straight backed benches for the little tots, among whom I was reckoned. "Miss Goodell was old fashioned in her ways of teaching, and believed in the punctuating power of the rod or ferule. I remember distinctly the last day of my stay at her seminary. I had an imperfect lesson in Olney's Geography, and she impressed the truth on my hand in scarlet lines that made me talk pretty hard when outside the building. I declared aloud that I was not going to old Sally Goodell's school any more. And on reaching home I represented the case to my father, and I was sent to the Academy, on opening of the next term. The building stood, as we know, on the street almost opposite Gen. Harland's front door. We used to slide down hill from the doorway into her yard, and occasionally she would give us a doughnut or other notion. She has gone I trust, where all good schoolma'ams go. The elderly lady's face was not attractive to the scholars, but that may not have been her fault entirely." Another boy writes "I remember the long dark entry in which our overcoats and caps were hung, the little square school room with the box stove in the centre, the platform occupied by the desk and chair of the presiding genius of the room, and the pail of water for the thirsty children which stood near the door. A vision of a dunce-block and cap also rises before my memory, but so vaguely that I think they must have been just then passing away. At all events I would not have it understood that I have any experimental knowledge of them. "The discipline of Miss Goodell's school was kind, but uncompromising. All the old prils I am sure, must remember the slate lying upon the desk, on which the names of the children were newly written each morning, so that opposite them might be placed the marks for violations of the rules and for excellence or defects in recitations (known as debits and credits.) One method of punishment, I am sorry to say, was a gentle rap of Miss Goodell's thimble on the head, accompanied by the remark, "Henry go to studying," "Benjamin, attend to your book," or "Webster, were you whispering?" The birch rod too, had not then gone out of fashion, but was in pickle for Most of us, I more serious offenders. Once in a while, fancy, had some slight taste of its quality upon our shoulders. punishment assumed a dramatic form,the blows of the rod reciprocated by vigorous screaming and pulling of specIt is safe to say that tacles and hair. Miss Goodell came off victorious. Battles in that schoolroom had only one issue. I re "I wish I could recall more distinctly what we used to play at recess. member that at certain times of the year, the first thing was to rush down the hill to the pear tree which grew in the garden, just on the edge of the yard. We could have the pears which fell in the yard, but the garden was forbidden ground. The pears were very good. I can taste them now. One of our favorite resorts at recess was under the great pine tree which stood in the lane. I wish the noble tree had never been cut down, but still stood in its picturesqueness." It does not appear when Miss Goodell decided to give up her school, but it must have been a deliberate step. The little building which had stood for more than sixteen years on the corner of the lot was moved away, and Miss Goodell retired to enjoy a well earned vacation. Perhaps this was in 1852, when her record book No. 4, ends. It was not very long however before she was persuaded to resume her work and for a number of years she taught a class of little children in the brick school house. One small boy who came for a half day as a visitor, enjoyed the experience so well, that he staid for two or three years as a regular pupil. Hearing that another boy not far from his own age living down town, had gone to the Free Academy as a visitor, he exclaimed "I don't see how Malcolm could get in at the Academy. He has never been to Miss Goodell's school." When Miss Goodell finally closed her school about 1872, there were but three scholars. Her charges for tuition for a number of years were $3.00 a quarter, with a pro rata charge for fuel in the winter season. This seems to have been an advance from the amount charged seventy years ago, if we may judge from the entry Dec. 22, 1823. "Received from Mrs. Wait 46 cents, for C. R.'s schooling." Charlotte Richards had been in attendance just two months. There is probably no likeness of Miss Goodell in existence, but there are those who remember her erect prim figure, seventy-five years ago, "very stiff and prim even as a young woman, but with a pleasant gleam in her blue eyes when they were good children, and a severe expres sion on her lips when their conduct was less satisfactory." And a pupil of later date says "It seems strange to write of the dear withered old woman as young. I never thought of her as ever having been youthful. I recall the little unplastered school house with the entry next the street, where we used to hang our caps on wooden pegs, and the little platform on the west side of the room, where Miss Goodell always sat in an oak seated chair, the back of which was made of hickory and painted green. She always wore a knitting sheath, and seemed to be always knitting woolen stockings, the most of which, I think, my father bought for himself and his large family." "She sat erect, so that there was always space between her body and the back of the chair." The big writing desk, beneath the lid of which an obstreperous boy was once shut for punishment, upon which lay the slate, the red ruler, the piece of an old rubber ball treasured for use as an eraser, and the school bell, all are accessories to the picture. At any rate, in later years, she is described as coming to school, watch in hand, looking at it lest she should be late,—a watch which has since been presented to Ex-President. Cleveland because made by his grandfather." Some of the text books used were Webster's Spelling Book, Woodbridge's Geography, followed by Olney's and again by Mitchell's; Peter Parley's History, Colburn's Arithmetic, and the New England Primer. There was no school Saturday afternoon, but the morning exercises that day were somewhat varied, including miscellaneous Bible questions, the Roman numerals, and the Westminster Shorter Catechism. "The distinct round hand in which she wrote the lines at the top of the copy books, ought to have guided all into a handwriting, legible if not handsome." 476 "Her prime force was lavished on spelling. We had field days in that, for which we were marshaled in companies, toeing a What an adcrack in the oaken floor. miring gaze I lifted up upon the tall fellows who went with a wondrous glibness through the intricacies of such words as im-prac-ti-ca-bil-i-ty." Sewing and knitting were taught as a matter of course to both boys and girls. The girls wrought samplers in cross stitch, and worked their own initials on the mittens which they had knit. In a Massachusetts parsonage, the minister still cherishes a trophy of his own handiwork in the shape of a patchwork quilt. Some of the wee children are enrolled as A B C scholars, and at least one of them was provided by his mother with a pillow for his daily naps, until she learned that used to envelop the pillow case was naughty boys and girls. "Another method of subduing masculine revolt was in tieing a girl's bonnet upon a boy's head," and, after sixty years, one of those boys wrote "I have a lingering sense of some such early chastisement, and the wearisome pasteboard stiffness and odors of cosmetics of the bonnet." Such a punishment worked both ways, for one of the girls of a less remote period tells what a trial it was to her to see her nice new yellow sunbonnet put upon a boy's head! Sometimes too, as a punishment, the boys were made to sit on the girls' side of the room, and one boy well remembers being required to scrub the floor where an ink bottle had fallen and rolled across the room. It is said that unruly children were sometimes hung up on the wall, a stout band passed around the waist, and again, city children passing the door at recess, listened with intense interest to the rumor that Miss Goodell had thrown a dipperful of water in Mary's face, because she was impudent. ones. The dunce block, a rough hewn stump on legs, and the foolscap of newspaper are distinctly recalled by pupils of differ"She also made use of ent generations. the under part of the school house which was dark, to shut up the unruly I must have have been one of that number" says the father of three boys, "for I recollect it, and I was even taken once in her arms down the hill into the cellar of her own house, and shown a dark place where the wickedest of the wicked were put." Perhaps it is only natural that so many of the reminiscences have to do with Miss Goodell's discipline but there are not wanting pleasant recollections of another sort. One of her girls writes "Every one seemed to me old in those days, but I don't think she seemed any more so than all grown-up people. I was fond of her perhaps because she was more indulgent to me than to most of her scholars. She was a faithful teacher and was I think fond of her scholars." And one of the one from whom I boys speaks of her as had great affection and for whom I still cherish the very pleasantest recollections." Others recall with pleasure their school days, the privilege of sitting by Miss Goodell's side and of rendering her some little personal service, learning to knit, which was made almost a game by counting aloud at the beginning of each needle in the stocking and the certificates for good conduct which they carried home. 66 This paper would be incomplete without especial mention of Miss Goodell's sister, Miss Lucretia, who so often bestowed upon the boy or girl sent to her house for some errand, a pear, an apple, a doughnut or cookey, a few raisins or even a piece of mince pie! It is said that she was not always amiable and then the visits "She guarded the were less enjoyable. house and grounds from the intrusion of |