Voice of the People: Daily Life in the Antebellum Rural Delaware County New York Area

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Education Homepage |  Education Letters, Diaries, etc. | Excerpt, pp. 113 - 118 from: Rollo at School, New York: Crowell: 1855


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For some weeks after this, things went on very quietly and smoothly in school, and Rollo began to make rapid progress in his studies. He did not attend to many studies, for his father preferred to have him go on as rapidly as possible in his Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic. He used to read in his class every morning, immediately after the commencement of the school, and then, for half an hour, study his spelling lesson. After that he worked upon his Arithmetic almost all the forenoon. He generally wrote in his writing-book for half an hour just before the school was ended.

Jonas used to talk with him occasionally in the evenings about his various pursuits and plans in school. Jonas advised him to be very systematic and orderly in all that he did, - to keep his desk perfectly neat and well arranged, and to have as many conveniences for study as he could, so as to make rapid progress. Jonas said that when he went to school the boys wasted half their time in looking for lost things, asking where the lesson began, going out after a drink or a wet sponge, or asking for ink, or a ruler, or a pencil.

Rollo accordingly took a great deal of pains to arrange his desk, and to put everything in it which he wanted. The things which he wanted to use most he placed in front, where his hand would fall upon them readily. His ruler and his little leaden plummet were placed there. He had also a little shallow box, made of pasteboard, which his mother had given him, and in this he kept his slate pencils, his piece of India rubber, a small lead pencil, and his erasing apparatus. His erasing apparatus was something which Jonas had made for him. Jonas said that when he went to school the boys would sometimes make a mistake in writing, and then would try to scratch it out with a penknife. But this would make a sort of blister on the paper, as if a drop of water had fallen upon the place. Then when they began to write over the place it would blot, and thus generally the spot looked worse than it would have done if they had let the mistake remain. So he said the master made an erasing apparatus, to prevent all this.

“Erasing?” said Rollo, when Jonas told him this, - “what is erasing?”

“It is rubbing out, - erasing means rubbing out.”

“How was the apparatus made?” said Rollo.

“Why, first, we had a piece of tin, about as big as my hand,” said Jonas, “very smooth.”

“What was that for?” said Rollo.

“It was to put under the paper when we wanted to scratch anything out,” said Jonas, “because it is necessary to have something smooth and hard. The reason why the boys commonly make a swelled spot is, that they have something a little soft under the leaf, such as the other leaves of the writing-book, or the baize of their desks, and then the paper gives a little as the edge of the knife passes to and fro, and this puffs it out.”

“We might put a book under it,” said Rollo; “a book cover is hard.”

“Not very,” said Jonas. “The leather is soft and yields a little; and besides, a book is so thick and clumsy that you cannot very well get it between the leaves.”

“A slate is smooth and hard enough,” said Rollo.

“Yes, but the frame is in the way, and prevents the leaf lying down smoothly on it.”

“Then a slate without any frame would do?” said Rollo.

“Yes, but that would be likely to have pencil marks and dust on it, which would come off upon the paper. Yet I suppose if a slate had no frame, and was perfectly clean, it would do very well. But a small piece of tin is better after all.

“Besides this piece of tin,” said Jonas, “the master had a very sharp knife, which he kept with the tin, and never used it for anything else. And so whenever any of us had made a mistake, we used to go to the master and get his erasing apparatus, and we could generally take it out very neatly.”

So Jonas made Rollo an erasing apparatus. He picked up a piece of tin at the door of a tinman’s. He contrived to make it square in this way. First he marked a square upon it with a ruler and an awl. Then he put the irregular edges one after the other into a very narrow crack in the barn floor, taking care to have the tin go down just to the mark that he had made on each side. Then he bent the tin back and forth, until it broke off very near these marks. Then he smoothed the edges by grinding them on a grindstone. Jonas held them on square while Rollo turned. Thus he made the tin.

Now Rollo had a broken knife blade which his father had given him one day, and which he kept in a little box of playthings up stairs. Jonas contrived to fix this into a handle of walnut wood, which he got from the woodpile, splitting it out with an axe and then fashioning it with a knife and a file, and afwards smoothing it with sand-paper. He dyed it, too, black, with some dye he had, and rubbed, afterwards, hard, with something he had in a bottle, which gave it a smooth, glossy look. He told Rollo that the blade was not fastened in strong enough to cut wood, or even to mend a pen, but that it would do very well for erasing.

Rollo was very much pleased with his erasing apparatus, and promised never to use the knife for any other purpose than the one for which it was intended. He carried it to school, and kept it, with his other small articles, in the little shallow box which we have already spoken of.

His books he place in the back side of his desk, standing them up upon their edges, so that he might take out one without disturbing the rest. He had a pen-wiper, which he had made himself, in one corner, and a piece of black cloth, of an oblong shape, which his mother had given him to lay his pen upon. He was always careful to wipe his pen before putting it away, but this cloth was an additional precaution, to prevent his inking the sheet of blue paper which he had spread over the bottom of his desk. On one of the legs of his desk, underneath, he fixed two little brass knobs, one to hang his satchel upon, and the other for his slate; for his slate took up a great deal of room in his desk, and then it made a great deal of noise taking it out and putting it in. So he had a place to hang it up below.

Rollo always kept his desk neat outside also. He did not allow his books and papers to accumulate there, but always put away every one as soon as he had done with it. The consequence was that his desk always looked neat and pleasant. The other children used to love to look into it and to see his things.

 

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