  Have you never heard the story of the good old country school With its rude split-bottomed benches and its ancient dunce's stool? Where Webster's Blue-back Speller was the only standard text, And supplied the place of grammar that our late forefathers vexed; Where they never heard of Latin or the Greek subjunctive mode, But sang their mult-plication like a patriotic ode? The Master, he was skinny, with a lean and hungry look; And a countenance as placid as a frozen winter brook; His brow was broad and Grecian, and his eye was snell and keen, And his head was stuffed with knowledge of a dozen books, I ween; And they say his nose was Roman as the bill of any hawk, And his boys were all perfection, for they had to walk the chalk. And yet I've often wondered if they really always walked, And sat upright like statues, and never laughed or talked, For I've often heard my father say the model of the school And lament the good old method, as a lost, forgotten art, Of imparting knowledge in a way that made a fellow smart. I wish we had the secret now of making boys walk Instead of always watching for a chance to throw some chalk; But the art, I think, was buried with the Blue-back Spelling Book, And the piercing eye of Skinny, that no mortal boy could brook; 'Twas buried with the benches and the ancient dunce's stool And the grease-glazed paper windows of the good old country school. It may be through psychology and molly-coddle stuff, We often talk in institutes, we've lost the power to bluff; Perhaps 'twas Pestalozzi, Froebel and John Herbart Who robbed the wand of Skinny of its pedagogic art; We'll not discuss philosophy, but we know about the chalk, That no theoretic dream of man can make a boy walk. |
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